New to SFF

0gami · 26 Jan 2006 at 10:30

Hi All,

I'm thinking of going from a Coolermaster Wavemaster to a SFF such as a shuttle. (I really need to save some deskspace.)

My current System is as follows:

AMD64 3500+
Asus A8V Rev.2 Deluxe
2 x 512 Corsair XMS3200XL Pro TwinX
Geforce 3 Ti500 (Yes I know but I only play Doom2 and a bit of CS)
SB Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 THX
80GB IDE HDD
DVD-ROM
DVD-RW
Enermax PSU

Now what from that lot above can I salvage a fit into a Shuttle?

All I want to be able to do on the system is browse the net, Copy DVD's, Play Doom2 and CS, and that pretty much is it.

Also can anyone recommend which Shuttle (or Alternative) to get?

Many thanks for any help.

1ofaKind · 26 Jan 2006 at 12:09

Hi,

I haven't got a shuttle (yet) but have been doing some investigating on the subject recently. In terms of salvage if your buying a new shuttle I think the biggest issues are going to be

1 - PCI Express so you need a new graphics card.
2 - Do you need both DVD's? A lot of SFF have 1 bay only (not all but most)
3 - Only 1 PATA connector. So unless you use HD & DVDRW on the one cable you either drop a DVD or get a SATA Harddisk.

I suppose the alternative is to look at something like QPACK and get a cheap AGP Matx motherboard and use the majority of the components you already have (from reading QPACKS issues are the PSU that comes with it is poop and some DVD drives can be a bit long for the cable connections).

Hope this helps a bit.

0gami · 26 Jan 2006 at 12:19

Thanks for the help dude, I do intend on buying a SATA Drive so thats that covered.
I think i'll loose the DVD-ROM and just keep the DVD-RW

And I like the look of the ST20G5 which has an onboard GFX?

I guess I have kind of answered my own post, is there anything else I need to know though?

cokecan · 26 Jan 2006 at 12:43

not really, their incredibly easy to put together. the onboard graphics should be ogod enough for doom 2 and cs as long as you dont have everything turned up to high. the ati express 200 chipset aint too shabby at all

one thing though, the ST20G5 has stealthed drive bays. on putting my friends together with an LG dvd-rw it took us some time to align the RW with the stealthed drive cover so the buttons lined up to eject the tray. can be a bit fiddley, but worth it cos it look sweet as anythin

0gami · 26 Jan 2006 at 13:57

Do you think the onboard graphics would run CS 1.6 at 60fps Constant @ 1024*768 with no AA or AF on?

cokecan · 26 Jan 2006 at 19:36

yeah i reckon it might. have a search on the net and you'll find plenty of benchmarks for it

think someone ran HL2 on it once

0gami · 31 Jan 2006 at 09:56

It does do 60fps on CS 1.6 appart from when there's a smoke grenade

cokecan · 31 Jan 2006 at 10:58

lol well thats pretty darn good forintegrated graphics id say

, what does it slow down to when theres smoke grenades???

0gami · 31 Jan 2006 at 12:54

Goes to high 30's on a smoke filled screen, although that is at 1360*768 (HDTV) and high smoke detail.

All in all i'm really really impressed with it, now I can see what all the fuss is about with SFF, looks really sweet on my desk with the 26" HDTV and Xbox360